A federal appeals court panel on Wednesday temporarily lifted an order deeming President Trump’s firing of the Democratic-appointed chair of the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA) unlawful.
The panel of three judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit granted the government’s request for an administrative stay, meaning Trump may remove FLRA Chair Susan Grundmann from the post — for now. The FLRA resolves disputes between federal employees and the government.
In March, U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan rejected the Trump administration’s arguments that the removal protections afforded to FLRA members like Grundmann, which are meant to prevent termination without cause, are unconstitutional. The White House did not purport to have cause to fire the FLRA chair when it did so in a two-sentence email earlier this year.
Sooknanan effectively reinstated Grundmann for the rest of her term unless an appeals court overturns the ruling. She relied on longstanding Supreme Court precedent in her decision.
“A straightforward reading of Supreme Court precedent thus resolves the merits of this case,” wrote Sooknanan, an appointee of former President Biden.
However, legal experts believe that precedent could be in peril, as some of the court’s conservatives have signaled a willingness to overturn the Supreme Court’s own past ruling. Several other lawsuits have been brought challenging Trump’s firings of independent agency members.
Last month, the Supreme Court cleared the way for Trump to fire two Democratic-appointed independent agency leaders, for now, over the dissents of the court’s three liberal justices.
The emergency order lifted a lower decision reinstating the two officials — National Labor Relations Board member Gwynne Wilcox and Merit Systems Protection Board member Cathy Harris — which handed Trump a win in his efforts to expand executive control over the federal bureaucracy.
The panel ordered Grundmann to file a response to the government’s motion for a stay pending appeal by June 23. Any government reply is due June 27.